George H. W. Bush Receives 2014 JFK Profile in Courage Award

On Sunday May 4, 2014, Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, presented George H. W. Bush, former President of the United States, and Paul W. Bridges, former Mayor of Uvalda, Georgia, with the 2014 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston. Jack Schlossburg’s mother, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, is Honorary President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced who the recipients would be on Thursday, March 27, 2014. George Bush the Elder is getting it, according to the press release, “in recognition of the political courage he demonstrated as President when he agreed to a 1990 budget compromise which reversed his 1988 campaign pledge not to raise taxes and put his re-election prospects at risk.” Bridges is receiving J.F.K. Profile in Courage Award “for risking his mayoral career with his decision to publicly oppose a controversial immigration law in Georgia.”

“This year’s Profile in Courage Award recipients exemplify what President Kennedy most admired in public servants: extraordinary courage in serving the greater good,” said Schlossberg, who is a member of the Profile in Courage Award Committee. “In his first term in office, President George H.W. Bush risked his reputation and ultimately his political career by forging an important compromise on the budget in 1990 that moved our country forward, and should not be forgotten. Mayor Paul Bridges took a stand on an issue affecting the rights of people in his community and never wavered in the face of fierce criticism. As my grandfather wrote in Profiles in Courage, ‘we cannot permit the pressures of party responsibility to submerge on every issue the call of personal responsibility.’ President Bush and Paul Bridges both put the public interest ahead of their own political fortunes. We’re thrilled to honor them this year.”

The J.F.K. Library Foundation stated, “In 1990, with the federal deficit at $200 billion and the Congressional Budget office suggesting it could double, President Bush negotiated with congressional Democrats to enact a budget deal which included spending cuts and tax increases aimed at reducing the deficit by approximately $500 billion over the following five years. The 1990 bipartisan budget agreement set annual limits on discretionary spending by Congress on defense, domestic programs and international affairs. It also, for the first time, created ‘pay as you go’ rules for entitlements and taxes. In order to reach the deal, Bush agreed to a tax increase as part of the compromise, and he was pilloried by conservatives for doing so. Although he recognized the 1990 budget deal might doom his prospects for reelection, he did what he thought was best for the country and has since been credited with helping to lay the foundation of the economic growth of the 1990s that followed.”

In 2011, Bridges, then the mayor of Uvalda, Georgia, joined a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU to stop the implementation of H.B. 87, a law aimed at driving illegal immigrants out of Georgia. As written, H.B. 87 authorized police to demand ‘papers’ demonstrating immigration status during traffic stops, and criminalized Georgians who knowingly interact with undocumented individuals, among other measures. Bridges, a Republican who was elected mayor in 2009, was the only politician to join the suit. He argued that the law would inhumanly separate families and was likely to have dire economic consequences for farming. Bridges himself would have been engaged in criminal behavior under the law, he said, because he often gave rides to undocumented immigrants who were his friends. As a result of his decision to publicly oppose the law, Bridges withstood scathing criticism from anti-immigration partisans around the country, and lost popular support at home.

The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award is presented annually to public servants who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences. The award is named for President Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. senators who risked their careers, incurring the wrath of constituents or powerful interest groups, by taking principled stands for unpopular positions. The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation created the Profile in Courage Award in 1989 to honor President Kennedy’s commitment and contribution to public service. It is presented in May in celebration of President Kennedy’s May 29th birthday. The Profile in Courage Award is represented by a sterling-silver lantern symbolizing a beacon of hope. The lantern was designed by [Caroline Kennedy’s husband] Edwin Schlossberg and crafted by Tiffany & Co.

The recipients of this prestigious award for political courage are selected by a distinguished bipartisan committee of national, political, and community leaders…

Albert R. Hunt, columnist for Bloomberg View and host of Political Capital with Al Hunt on Bloomberg Television, chairs the fifteen-member Profile in Courage Award Committee. The other committee members are Christopher Dodd, former U.S. Senator (D-Connecticut) and C.E.O. of the Motion Picture Association of America; U.S. Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (D-Maryland); Kenneth R. Feinberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Adam Frankel, former speechwriter to President Barack Obama, now a strategist with Microsoft; U.S. Senator Lindsay O. Graham (R-South Carolina); Antonia Hernandez, President and C.E.O. of the California Community Foundation; Elaine Jones, Director-Counsel Emeritus of the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Education Fund; Paul F. Kirk, Jr., former U.S.. Senator (D-Massachusetts) and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation; Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Shari Redstone, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Viacom, Inc. and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of CBS Corporation; Jack Schlossberg, grandson of J.F.K. and Yale University student; John Seigenthaler, founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University; David M. Shribman, Executive Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Olympia Snowe, former U.S. Senator (R-Maine). Heather M. Campion, C.E.O. of the J.F.K. Library Foundation, is an ex-officio member of the Profile in Courage Award Committee.

The origins of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation can be traced back to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Inc. This was a non-profit corporation chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on December 5, 1963 to build and equip the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Under its first president, Robert F. Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Inc. raised and managed more than $20,000,000 in private funds by public subscription for the construction of the J.F.K. Presidential Library & Museum. This organization also selected the site of the J.F.K. Presidential Library & Museum; commissioned its architect, the exhibit designers, and the general contractor; and supervised construction. On October 20, 1979, the Kennedy Library Corporation transferred the title to the completed facility to the U.S. Government on October 20, 1979 at a dedication ceremony attended by President Jimmy Carter.In 1984, the J.F.K. Library Corporation reorganized under Massachusetts law as the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization founded to provide financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

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S.M. O'Connor was formerly interim archivist at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI). He contributed a chapter on big business to the history textbook, "Jazz Age: People and Perspectives" and two chapters on influential movie diretors to "100 People Who Changed 20th-Century America." Mr. O'Connor spoke about several issues and events in Chicago regional history at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Illinois History Conferences in Springfield. Contact him at this address.